Page 66 of Shameless
“I would have loved to fish back then in my downtime.”
“Did you have downtime?” I snorted, remembering he would wake up with the sun and go to bed way before I did.
“You were off with your boyfriend.” He stuck out his tongue and I wrinkled my nose at his teasing.
I opened the side door of the barn and we walked inside. Usually, such a space would house animals, but not Aunt Deb’s barn. She had all her apples stored in the insulated barn. “I wasn’t gone that often.”
“Pretty much,” he retorted.
I grabbed the keys to the four-wheeler. “All right. Fine. I was, but I was on summer break. Do you blame me?”
“Not at all.” He shook his head and took a bite of his sandwich. “I mean, I wonder what would have happened if you were single.”
“Maybe we would have had a summer fling.” I grimaced, thinking about that scenario.
“Or maybe it would have been more than a fling and we would be married with a million kids running around.”
“Whoa. Let’s not get crazy about the kid thing. We can start with o—” I stopped, realizing what I was about to say. Jesus. We hadn’t been dating that long, and I was already talking about kids. What was wrong with me?
Blake smirked and followed me to another door of the barn where the generator and tools were kept, as well as the four-wheeler. “We can start with one.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, why not?”
“Because you just had a baby scare with your ex-fiancée.”
“Only because the baby wasn’t planned and there was a possibility I wasn’t the father.”
I turned from the ATV and faced him. “You want to start having kids?”
He grabbed my hand. “I want to do whatever you want to do, sweet thing. Don’t you get it?”
“Do you want to be married first, or should we try right now?” I teased.
He slowly grinned. “I’m all for practicing.”
Even though we’d gotten into a massive fight that very day, we were already back to being us. However, I still had lingering questions I needed him to answer. “First, I want to talk, and then we can discuss practicing.”
“All right. Are you going to let me drive?”
“Do you know where we are going?” I knew he didn’t, and that was why I’d asked.
“No.”
“Then no.” I winked and climbed onto the four-wheeler. “Hop on.”
Blake shoved the rest of his sandwich into his mouth and then sat behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist. I put the key in and started it up, and then drove us through the woods until we reached the creek.
The creek wasn’t wide, maybe about fifty feet across, and I wasn’t sure where it led. A tire swing hung over the water’s edge capable of launching a person into the water, but I’d never been brave enough to try it.
“Whenever I would come here, no one else would show up. I would think no one knows about it except someone put that tire swing here.”
We stayed on the ATV, and I turned to face Blake. Taking my sandwich out of my jacket, I took a bite.
He brushed a piece of my hair out of my face. “I’m sorry you found out the way you did.”
I stopped chewing for a second. He had started the conversation we needed to have, and yet I’d been caught off guard. I’d thought for sure I would have to bring it up, given the flirty banter we were having.
